The probable date of this petition is 1621, and its importance in relation to the beginning of the English cotton industry is evident. Although the “thousands” mentioned as employed in the making of fustians at the time is a stereotyped number in petitions, and may perhaps be somewhat discounted, the facts that a cotton manufacture had become established in England and that it had attained a considerable magnitude are placed beyond doubt.[49] [Footnote 49: See note _infra_, pp. 195-196.] A little more light appears to be thrown upon the petition in a pamphlet which was published in 1613, the year in which the patent of the Duke of Lennox was extended[50] to include “80 several stuffs; and amongst the rest these fustians or other stuffs of this kind of cotton wool.” The pamphlet was written by John May, a “deputie alneger” who at the time was out of office, under the title, _A Declaration of the Estate of Clothing now used within this Realme of England. With an Apologie for the Alneger showing the necessarie use of his Office_, and was dedicated in obsequious terms “to the Duke of Lenox ... Alneger generall for the Realme of England and the Dominion of Wales.” The writer was concerned with the deceits that had crept into the clothing trade generally, owing to lack of supervision, but he was particularly anxious about the “many sorts of cloth or stuffs lately invented which have got new godfathers to name them in fantasticall fashion that they which weare them, know not how to name them, which are generally called newe draperie.”[51] [Footnote 50: See _infra_, p. 197.] [Footnote 51: P. 22.] It is not without significance that in no part of his pamphlet does he give any inkling that he knew that any of the new goods were other than woollen goods, rather he implies the contrary.